Dinshaw, Carolyn.
Piero Boitani and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003), pp. 270-89.
Dinshaw contemplates recent critical trends in medieval studies in light of the events of September 11, 2001, tracing the developments of feminist, queer, and postcolonial approaches to Chaucer's works by focusing on MLT.
Argues that the narrator and the characters of FranT pursue an ideal of social harmony based on "trouthe," but they produce a "collective fiction" in which "competing forms of exchange"--marriage, promises, and money--disclose tensions that must…
Suggests that the source for Nero's fishing nets of golden thread and for the cutting of both Seneca's arms as he lies in the bathtub come from the unedited "Alphabetum narrationum," ca. 1308.
Chaucer refers to popular uprisings in the Monk's legend of Nero and in NPT. Jack Straw was a title used in springtime games in England, and the rebellion he reputedly led may have stemmed largely from popular ritual.
Gutiérrez Arranz, José Maria.
José F. González Castro, ed. Perfiles de Grecia y Roma: Actas del XII Congreso Español de Estudios Clásicos, Valencia, 22 al 26 de Octubre de 2007 (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Clásicos, 2011), pp. 433-41.
Examines Chaucer's use of classical mythology from the perspective of how it is reinterpreted, sometimes following Neoplatonism (through St Augustine), and sometimes through other allegorical and moralizing reading.
Schrock, Chad.
Studies in Philology 108 (2011): 27-43.
Assesses how the invocation to the "yevere of the formes" (2228ff.) that opens the "Legend of Philomela" in LGW contributes to the "primary rhetorical effect" of the legend, i.e.,"secondary pathos." As an appeal to an absent god, the invocation, like…
Erickson, Sandra S. F., and Glenn W. Erickson.
Sandra S. F. Erickson and Glenn W. Erickson. Logos e Poesis: Neoplatonismo e Literatura (Natal, Brazil: EDUFRN, Editora da UFRN, 2006), pp. 35-60.
Argues that Biblical and Neoplatonic number symbolism conveys the message of BD: that souls return to heavenly happiness. Considers Chaucer's summary of Scipio's dream, traces references to Pythagoras in BD, and identifies places where it…
Robinson, Carol L., and Pamela Clements, eds., with Preface by Richard Utz
Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2012.
Series of essays by members of the Medieval Electronic Multimedia Organization (MEMO) related to differing interpretations of neomedievalism in various forms of media. For an essay related to Chaucer, search for Neomedievalism in the Media under…
Clements, Pamela.
Carol L. Robinson, Pamela Clements, and Richard Utz, eds. Neomedievalism in the Media: Essays on Film, Television and Electronic Games (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2012), pp. 35-54.
Essay on adaptations of CT, focusing on Powell and Pressburger's "A Canterbury Tale (1944), Piero Pasolini's "I racconti di Canterbury" (1972), and Brian Helgeland's "A Knight's Tale" (2001), which treat CT in a "neomedievalist fashion" and also…
Chapman, Don.
Ian Lancashire, ed. Computer-Based Chaucer Studies (Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, 1993), pp. 87-98.
Computer-assisted analysis of the 276 neologisms in Bo produces statistical descriptions of their source languages,their distribution in Bo, and their occurrences in other works by Chaucer. The analysis underpins surmises about the range and nature…
Milliken, Roberta Lee.
Dissertation Abstracts International 56 (1996): 2672A.
Comparison of Criseyde with Boccaccio's Criseida shows that Chaucer sets forth her characterization in Books 1-3: She is fearful, alone, aware of her position, and easily manipulated. These traits, which foreshadow her future, are less evident in…
Schutz, Andrea.
Jean E. Godsall-Myers, ed. Speaking in the Medieval World (Boston: Brill, 2003), 105-24.
Language itself is important in FranT, but so is the intention of the speaker. Moreover, authorial intention in CT as a whole affects how we use language for our own ends, because we learn from everything we read. Authors must consider consequences…
Patterson, Lee.
Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
Considers "political agendas" that governed the development of Chaucer scholarship and textual criticism and analyzes medieval studies in terms of current theories about historicism. CT bears "a privileged relation" to the historic moment. Chapters…
Utz, Richard J.
Richard Utz, ed. Literary Nominalism and the Theory of Rereading Late Medieval Texts: A New Research Paradigm (Lewiston, N.Y.; Queenston, Ont.; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen, 1995), pp.1-30.
Surveys the critical application of nominalism to medieval literary texts, suggesting three main approaches: nominalist text as source, as coeval philosophical substratum, and as historical corroboration of modern perceptions.
Reis, Huriye.
Interactions: Ege University Journal of British and American Studies 12.1-2 (2012): 69-78.
Uses Michel Foucault's notions of power, subversion, and discourse to argue that LGWP "illustrates the medieval writer's relationship to hegemonic power" and "presents the potential ways authors are involved in the production and subversion of…
Blum, Martin.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 37-52.
John, Nicholas, and Absolon are, each in his own way, feminized in MilT, while Alison is masculinized and thereby escapes punishment.
Nevalainen, Terttu.
Journal of English Linguistics 34 (2006): 257-78.
Addresses historical sociolinguistic trends between 1400 and 1800, tracing the disappearance of multiple negative (negative concord) usage to the latter half of the eighteenth century. However, data also suggest that Late Middle English initiated the…
Iyeiri, Yoko.
Merja Kytö, John Scahill, and Harumi Tanabe, eds. Language Change and Variation from Old English to Late Modern English: A Festschrift for Minoji Akimoto (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 79-101.
Iyeiri analyzes the "various forms of negation" in the fragments of Rom, commenting on their implications for attribution. Fragment C is more like B than like the Chaucerian A in many of its forms of negation; hence, it is unlikely to be by Chaucer.
Iyeiri investigates negative constructions in five versions of Bo, discussing the relative chronology of the witnesses to the text and, more generally, the editing of Middle English texts.
Doob, Penelope B. R.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974.
This study of madness in Middle English literature generally mentions Chaucer only in passing, but includes a brief discussion of a "pedestrian and highly traditional account of Nebuchadnezzer" in MkT. Clearly based on the Book of Daniel, the account…
